星期一：After class today, Becca, Mackenzie, and I decided to go eat some strawberry shave ice from a shop behind my old house. I personally think they have the best shave ice, at east of ones I’ve tried, and I’m not sure why I didn’t take advantage of it more often while I lived there, but it’s probably good because if I had I would be like 20 pounds heavier now.
(this shave ice was actually a dream come true)
(walking home I noticed all the flowers were in bloom at the park by my house)
星期二：Woo Happy 19th Birthday to me!!! Today Jenny and Kripa surprised me in tutoring with a giant cake made out of a million little pineapple cakes. It was super cute and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and ate, though I still had like 30 cakes left over after tutoring, so I took it to my Chinese class to share with my classmates, but they were all being too nice and polite and didn’t want to eat my present from Jenny and Kripa even though it was totally meant for sharing. By the end of the day I still had like 20 left, but when I brought them home my host sisters had no qualms about enjoying it.
My host family also surprised me at dinner, and it was especially unexpected because they had already taken me out for fancy Japanese food. They first decided to get me some McDonald’s because they wanted me to have an American birthday, and while I’m not a fan of McDonald’s, the sentiment was pretty cute. They also got me a delicious mango chocolate cake that restored my faith in the deliciousness of cake and a nice present of a sweater, keychain, and bracelet, which was too nice. My little host sister was especially excited because she’s six and birthdays are awesome, but we all kept joking that it was essentially her birthday because she decided to help me blow out the candles, wore my birthday hat, and even got too excited and opened my birthday present for me. It was pretty adorable and she even sang Happy Birthday for me in Chinese and English, played it on the piano, and then performed a dance for me.
(the pineapple cake cake)
(my family gave me an awesome birthday dinner)
星期三：Today we had a rehearsal for our midterm presentations, so we all had to present our projects to each other and all of our tutors. While it was pretty much the worst because none of our projects were quite finished and we were all nervous, everyone said my speed and tones sounded good when I spoke, even though I have a lot of memorization work to do, so I was good with that for now.
星期五：Today Becca, Mackenzie, and Heather agreed to go sing KTV with me since that was essentially all I wanted for my birthday. We first decided to go get some Korean food, and Heather and I both bought these atomic cloud looking cotton candy drinks that were super sweet but so good. While the food was delicious, my backpack still smells like that restaurant, which is sort of unfortunate. We then headed to the KTV place; technically you’re supposed to go sing KTV at like two in the morning, be we have a curfew and wanted sleep, so we decided to instead go at two in the afternoon. We then ended up staying until 6:30 because when singing Whitney, Britney, and ABBA, there’s no way to keep track of time. Overall it was an awesome afternoon and I greatly appreciate my friends for humoring me and letting me sing all the Broadway ballads the KTV place offered.
(the cotton candy mushroom cloud of a drink)
(I was pretty pumped about going to KTV)
星期天：Today everyone but my host sister had stuff they had to do again, and my host sister was studying for her midterms all week, so I decided to head out to a park on the other side of the city (also because I had to practice my midterm a lot and I didn’t want my host sister have to listen to my relatively rough midterm five million times). The park was pretty small, but it was covered in nice artwork and had a big painted water tower in the middle and was generally just a nice place to study.
(I relate to this water tower's feelings about the city)
(some nice street art)
(and some more)